Tag: Future Fit

If there must be just one A&E for Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire and mid-Wales, where should it be located? At the Princes Royal Hospital (PRH) in Telford or the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH)?

This will be the main question asked in the Future Fit consultation on the future of Shropshire health services. We are expecting that to be launched in the next few weeks. There is a third option, that we keep both A&Es, though that will not an option health bosses will put forward in the forthcoming consultation.

Tracey Huffer, Shropshire Councillor for Ludlow East and a Ludlow nurse, welcomed the news.

“This is great news and so overdue. It will allow the county’s NHS services to be modernised. But this money should not be used as an excuse to centralise services in Shrewsbury and Telford at the expense of rural services and community hospitals.

Many people have received first class treatment from the NHS, including myself after a recent stroke. Regrettably, that is not everyone’s experience. It is no secret that our health system is creaking at the seams.

The controversy has only just begun. Yesterday morning, the Future Fit board firmed up its recommendations on how to split services between the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princes Royal Hospital in Telford.

Both hospitals will have urgent care centres (UCCs) open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is predicted that the UCCs will take 80% of the cases that currently go to A&E.

There will be one A&E. That will be at the RSH. People in Telford are understandingly not happy with that. Neither are they happy that the Women and Children’s Centre, opened at the PRH in September at the cost of £28 million, will move to Shrewsbury.

Local and county health services are changing. Most readers of this blog will know of Future Fit, the programme to transform health services across Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin. In recent weeks, we have been engaged with the Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) and its implications for the county and Ludlow. I’ll write more on the problems with the STP in coming days and weeks.

On 9 December, Shropshire Together will be holding a workshop on one element of the STP. How do we deliver community based health services? Please come along to learn more about this part of the STP, to share your experiences and make your views known. Details of how to book are at the end of this post.